Fabric Cryptography, a startup specializing in cryptographic hardware, has successfully raised $33 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Blockchain Capital and 1kx. Additional investors included Offchain Labs, Polygon, and Matter Labs. This latest round follows a $6 million seed round led by Metaplanet.

The fresh capital will be directed toward the development of specialized computing chips, software, and cryptographic algorithms, according to the company. A key focus of Fabric’s innovation is the creation of a new processing unit called the Verifiable Processing Unit (VPU), specifically designed for cryptography.

Fabric’s VPU is touted as the first custom silicon chip to utilize an instruction set architecture tailored to cryptographic functions. The company claims this architecture enables any cryptographic algorithm to be broken down into its mathematical components, which are natively accelerated and supported by the chip.

As companies increasingly develop computing chips to meet the growing demands of AI and cryptography-intensive blockchain applications, Fabric’s VPUs are expected to significantly enhance the speed and cost-efficiency of advanced cryptographic workloads, outperforming traditional CPUs, GPUs, and existing fixed-function cryptography solutions.

The VPUs are scheduled to enter production later this year. Fabric’s founders include MIT and Stanford dropouts Michael Gao and Tina Ju, along with hardware industry veteran Sagar Reddy.